This invention generally relates to food service trays. More specifically, this invention relates to a food service tray carrying various meal components, all of which may be kept chilled until shortly before serving. Most particularly, this invention relates to a food service tray which allows selective rethermalization of certain meal components while other meal components are kept chilled.
The need for a food service system which would allow preparation of meals long before they are needed, hold the meals at a safe temperature, and then reheat portions of the meals for serving has been well recognized. Hospitals in particular need such a system. The prior art shows many attempts to develop such systems. However, these systems all had flaws in either workability or expense. For example, infra-red lamps have been used to reheat portions of meals. Microwaves have also been used for heating selected portions of an entire meal. The so-called "hot pellet" system is also used. In such a system, a large mass of heated material is placed under a tray to keep the contents of the tray warm. However, the heated material could be spilled if the tray were overturned leading to a possible burn hazard. In some cases, a plurality of pre-prepared meals have been transported and stored in totally enclosed, refrigerated carts. In some cases, the service tray or food containers were quite expensive in order to perform specialized heating or cooling function; this required reuse of these components because of economic factors. Ideally, however, all of the food service components should be disposable, with the exception of a transport cart or carrier. I have found that the objectives of good thermal control of meal elements and disposability of the service components can be achieved by forming a base member of an insulating material and providing in the base member compartments divided into two flow chambers. Then, thermally conductive receptacles carrying meal elements are inserted in the compartments and covered with an insulating lid. Chilled air may be circulated through the flow chambers to keep all of the meal elements chilled. If some elements are to be served heated, heated air may be selectively circulated through selected flow chambers to re-heat or keep hot these particular meal elements.